Troy Caldwell's dream of an Alpine-to-Squaw route lives on at his White Wolf Mountain

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Spring would be the time to ski White Wolf - Troy Caldwell's mountain between Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows. Seventeen chairlift towers are up and can be seen from the top of Squaw's KT-22 lift, and the road into Alpine. But there are no chairlifts between the towers, and the spring skiers are left waiting. Caldwell, 58, lives at the base of his mountain.

"The section of land that I own borders Alpine Meadows and butts right up to their parking lot. And it goes over into Squaw and is leased back to them. It's not a full-on ski area because it doesn't have the northerly exposure. It's more of a very unique powder situation and corn skiing. That's something that most people haven't discovered about the Sierra.

Corn skiing is one of our best ski seasons and it takes place in April and May. Corn is when the snow crystals melt in the sun and refreeze and become a creamy substance. There is about a two- to three-hour period in the morning when it becomes very good skiing. It's as fun as skiing powder without sinking in. Because of the amount of snow, this will be an excellent year. It will probably go to June 1.

I have a conditional-use permit that says that I can have qualified skiers ski my side of the mountain - only friends and family with no ticket selling. Without the chairlift, we're still having fun. We take the snowcat up and ski down. It's as much vertical as a lot of public ski areas. It's 1,123 feet, top to bottom. It took approximately two weeks to fly the towers up by helicopter, and a crew of 30 to install them. When I put the towers in, everybody started to realize what I was doing and the dream became a reality. I wasn't a crazy man on the mountain who thought he could build a ski area. It was all set to go and then the lawsuit took place. It was filed by Squaw Valley against us. We're in Placer County Superior Court. We would like to settle so we could both go about doing some positive things instead of fighting each other.

I own KT-22. It is my mountain. I own about 70 acres of Squaw. I bought it from Southern Pacific Land Co. in 1990. I still lease that property to Squaw. We've continued to lease it since we started this agreement in 1990. I could shut them down if we wanted to go to a courtroom brawl.

If my dream were totally brought to fruition, White Wolf Mountain would become an inter-connect between Alpine and Squaw. A skier could ski from the Squaw side all the way to the Alpine Meadows ski area.

I'm headed for a private ski area at this point because that's what my permit says. I'll develop some lots or a lodge at the bottom eventually to accommodate my guests. You take a homeowners group, say 30 homes, and each of those homes owns one thirtieth of the ski area. They would have the right to ski and maintain White Wolf. They'd have the best of both worlds. They'd have their private ski area and then they'd have two major ski areas on either side of them. Should politics change down the road, we certainly could get into an interconnect type of scenario.

I've had many opportunities to team up with people. If I take on partners, I'll put a bunch of dollars in my pocket, but I won't have the dream the way I want it. I'm willing to wait a lifetime. I'm a crazy man on a mountain, and if I leave I don't know where else I'd go."

The Lightbulb: I started out to put a 40-acre site together that I could put a bed and breakfast on. The dream became larger than a bed and breakfast. It became a private ski area. I said 'I'm going for my dream. I'm going to build that chairlift.'